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The Anchor

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I remember the days of old;   I meditate on all that you have done;   I ponder the work of your hands.   I stretch out my hands to you; my  soul  thirsts for  you like a parched land.   ( Psalm   143:5-6 ESV ) When life is hard and the waves keep slamming into us, our anchor is in our history with God. Usually when the waves  hit, we tend to only see them and the destruction they are causing  all around us  and we forget that we  aren’t  alone.  When the pain is loud, our awareness of God can dim. This isn’t due to sin; it’s due to focus.  When we  hurt,  we are usually not foc using on God, we are focusing on the pain. When  we  were  children and  fell  and  tripped ,  scrap ping  our knees, we  d idn’t   think about our parents  who were walking next to us;   at  that moment   we  were  thinking about the cut  and...
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Holy Thunder

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When we hear the word “holy ”,  what images pop into our heads? Do we think of  a stereotypical  stuffy church lad y  wearing conserv ative dress  and judging you for your music tastes? Do we think of an angry street preacher calling fire down on his enemies who happen to be everyone  with in earshot  of his diatribe ?  Is it a building? Is it a book? Our thoughts and images about  these  concepts that are central to the story of Scripture are important . T hey can either be a help or  hindrance to drawing closer to God. The above images  will   probably  c ause  us to run far away from Him.   However, the word that translates to holy in English is the Hebrew word “ K adosh ” ,  meaning “otherness” or “set apartness ”.  It is not a word that means moral perfection or  religiosity as we tend to think  it does . God  is  morally  perfect but  that’s  not the prima r...
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On Saturday

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The day between Good Friday and Easter Sunday has been referred to by many as “Holy Saturday ”.  On this day, Christ was in the tomb.  His body was implanted like a seed  in  the earth. I can imagine his disciples and friends were shocked and devastated by what happened in the  preceding  week.  Jesus entered Jerusalem in a triumphant procession with the people shouting “Hosanna ”,  now a week later or less, Jesus was dead. The King they thought would save them from th e Romans was crushed by them instead.   Holy Saturday was a day for mourning and weeping. It was not a day for Easter eggs or sugary treats. Those who knew and loved Jesus the most were hiding  for their lives and terrified of being next after Jesus to be hoisted up on a cross. The earth it self was uneasy, a s  the rocks split apart, and the sun dimmed the day before. Creation was still reeling from all of these events.  On Saturday all was quiet. The tomb seeme...
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Clothed in Grace

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The Kingdom of God is not my dysfunction.   The Kingdom of God is not my refusal to admit I was wrong. The Kingdom of God is not my bent to do the opposite of what I set out to do. The Kingdom of God is not about me. It is easy to want something; it is another thing to obtain it. In the life we live in th is  fast-paced and consumer driven modern  world, our wants and needs become conflated. I mistake what I  desire  for what I need. I need water, food, sunlight, community, and l ove. I  don’t  necessarily need a larger TV,  the latest smart device, or the latest status symbol that our culture  uses  to signify  what success is.  I realize that  the  wants  that  I think I need  are  to make myself feel better about my defects. Status symbols can  perhaps hide  my disappointment in my wasted oppo rtunities that  I’ve  squandered.  Smart devices and endless scrolling can dis...
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